Control of a patient's body temperature down to therapeutic hypothermia while undergoing medical treatments such as surgical procedures in the operating room, emergency room, or intensive care unit is beneficial. Despite various types of cooling apparatus and methods have been utilized in the past for inducing therapeutic hypothermia, it lacks a rapid and efficient cooling technology to meet the time window for optimal efficacy.
Recently, ice slurry was introduced to as a method to achieve hypothermia. It allows rapid and highly controlled cooling of a specific organ or group of organs and in most cases allows multiple targets or whole body to be protectively cooled to optimum individually protective temperatures.
The use of medical ice slurry to induce hypothermia is known in the art. A slurry of frozen saline is administered through injection means to rapidly cool organs to reduce metabolic demand and increase the likelihood of cell survival during periods of oxygen deprivation. A different number of apparatuses are utilized to create and produce the medical ice slurry utilized in this process.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,547,811 by Lance B. Becker, Terry Vanden Hoek, and Kenneth E. Kasza issued Jul. 2, 2002, and entitled “Method for Inducing Hypothermia” discloses systems for phase-change particulate slurry cooling equipment and methods to induce hypothermia in a patient through internal and external cooling. Subcutaneous, intravascular, intraperitoneal, gastrointestinal, and lung methods of cooling are carried out using saline ice slurries or other phase-change slurries compatible with human tissue. Perfluorocarbon slurries or other slurry types compatible with human tissue are used for pulmonary cooling. Traditional external cooling methods are improved by utilizing phase-change slurry materials in cooling caps and torso blankets. U.S. Pat. No. 7,389,653 B2 by Kenneth E. Kasza et al., discloses an apparatus for producing sterile ice slurries for medical cooling applications. The apparatus includes a slurry production reservoir adapted to contain a volume of a saline solution, or other solution containing a freezing point depressant. A flexible membrane crystallization surface is provided within the slurry production reservoir. The membrane is chilled to a temperature below a freezing point of the saline solution within the reservoir such that ice particles form on the membrane. A deflector in the form of a reciprocating member is provided for periodically distorting the membrane and dislodging the ice particles, which form on the membrane.
U.S. Pat. No. 8,505,315 published Aug. 13, 2013, filed Feb. 6, 2009, by Kenneth E. Kasza et al., discloses an apparatus for producing sterile ice slurries for medical cooling applications. The ice slurry production apparatus includes a blender container receiving sterile saline carrier liquid and sterile chunk ice, a cutter blade, a slurry conditioning-agitator mechanical mechanism coupled to blender cover, a slurry delivery tube and a tubing pump, and an electric power transformer for controlling blender speed.